Went downstairs yesterday lugging some books in a storage container (one of many) to put them in my car, my “new” car, Lilly, (yes she has a name as BB had a name until ill-timed blind left hand turns from a fellow driver rendered him nameless) and, in my lugging, I remembered, shit, books have weight and not just of whatever stories they might hold but books have weight, motherfuckers are heavy!!
I am to be moving from my 6 year spot here on the Hill of fur, a lot of fur, at the end of next month (I will write about that at another time) and I really need to pare things down. Single dudes with two cats don’t need to have nearly as much shit as I have and that includes books in storage bins, numerous storage bins.
It hurts a little to make the decision to put them in Lilly and not just from the toll on the back (with your legs Steve, lift with your legs) but the putting of them in Lilly means I am letting them go, the first step to goodbyes.
I don’t know, no, I do know what the difficulty with letting books go is. There are lives in there, worlds, adventures, friends, some met some not (I am no hoarder but there are some that I’ve kept and always told myself if only the time to meet) they are people and memories. They exist the second you crack a spine (with your legs Steve, lift with your legs) and it is tough to let people go, even those who only exist in words, even some you haven’t met, haven’t met “yet” you keep telling yourself from place to place to place. I have a universe in four storage bins, a universe that I have been lugging with me from one smaller universe to the next since my college years. But if I hold onto them it will just continue to be a lugging and a universe closed, sitting dormant under folded towels and cat’s asses in windows with nothing more than hello’s in a morning’s drapes open above fur and stories just wishing to be read, just wishing their purpose.
They need to breathe, if they can.
I need to breathe.
I am lucky enough to have a good friend whose wife works at a library and might be able to give my books a good home.
“Yes, this is Emily and Earnest and Edgar and some of their friends, be kind to them (apparently my favorite letter today just happened to be presented by Ernie) but there are others of course.
I did, though, do what any of us would do, no matter the grand intention of the “paring down”, and that is pull some out to start a new, separate storage bin. Yeah, this is tough. A couple of Gene Wolfe’s that I missed reserving on my “reserved for Gene Wolfe” shelf under the TV, an almost 30 year old movie review book because it is so important to be current plus I think my cinephile friend, Rick, would be disappointed if I didn’t, the Bill James baseball book to remind me of a lifelong of fandom before Rob Manfred cheapened the great game, the second in a trilogy of a space sci fi opera that I read in High School that will, of course, require me to add while I subtract and find the first one for a re-read, some yearbooks, high school and college (I did say books were people right?) a book of poetry from a professor I almost studied with years ago, a something of nightmares that ya just have to keep simply for a nightmare’s reason, a couple of others and a little gem that my Dad used to refer to, copywrite 1957.
It’s 20,000 pre 1957 words but pocket sized so that’s Ok right?
Plus, memories.
Right Dad?
And who the hell is Leslie by the way? HeHeHe.
frankenberrysattic.com 